So, I’m in the Cataclysm beta, and there will be a post or seven forthcoming regarding my thoughts on stuff, however I wanted to post this up real quick, because it caught my attention, and has potential to be pretty damn awesome.

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Note the up and down arrows on either side of the character select window. Could we be getting more than 11 character slots? Only time will tell.

I’m just a touch early with this, but I’m gonna be busy and/or hungover the rest of the weekend, so I’m posting it now.

Nim over at Ankh=Life posted a Blog Azeroth Shared Topic that works rather well for me, so I just had to respond to it. She asked what other people do when WoW is unavailable. Over the summer, after introducing Sharon’s mom to, and subsequently addicting her to WoW, we started having latency problems. Just one of us on would sometimes see lag near 1k ms, with all three of us on it would sometimes spike to 2-3k ms. This pretty much made WoW completely unplayable, and lasted for 3-4 months. Those months sucked, however we found ways to fill our massive amounts of newfound free time.

For starters, my Xbox 360 stopped filing missing persons reports on me. Found myself playing a fair amount of World at War, Modern Warfare 2, and Dragon Age. It also sparked an interest in finding 360 games that Sharon and I could play together with local multiplayer. Soul Caliber 4, Forza Motorsport 3, Left 4 Dead 2, and Guitar Hero have all been tried, haven’t found one yet we can agree on, besides GH.

Netflix watch Instantly. Our lag issues were problems with response times and timeouts, not bandwidth, so we were still able to watch movies and TV on Netflix and other streaming video. Let’s see, there was just about all of the new Dr. Who, Penn and Teller’s Bullsh*t, all of Battlestar Galactica, various stand-up and documentaries, various zombie movies, Behind the Mask(awesome, awesome movie), all of Whitest Kids U Know, and all of Weeds. Finishing an entire tv series(or at least up to what had currently been aired) and going “So, now what?” was not an uncommon problem.

Learning to play the guitar. My in-laws are both guitar players, and have a fair few kicking around. With all of that extra free time on my hands, I decided to try picking up guitar. Used a website called guitartricks.com, and it worked fairly well, although I’ve stalled out on it recently due entirely to my lack of finding time to practice. I’m likely going to pick up an electric from a pawn shop and see about taking some actual lessons in the near future.

Develop a social life. This one has actually had long-term effects, aka friends. Before the Dark Time of no WoW, going out with friends and whatnot tended to be scheduled around raid nights. Sad, I know. Now, playing WoW is happening around hanging out with friends, and it’s definitely a change for the better. I’m even having a party tomorrow night, and there will be people there who…wait for it….aren’t in my guild! Craziness! As a side note, screw turning 30.

And, finally, doing all of the above spending time together, facing each other. This one more or less speaks for itself. Playing WoW together was kind of “our thing” that we did together. However, sitting across from each other, talking on vent with guildmates, probably not the healthiest together activity in the world. Don’t get me wrong, we still do it, but it’s not primary anymore.

Jesus, this almost seems to have come across as a WoW Anonymous type of deal. We do still play, and I enjoy it very much, it’s just that a break from the game seems to have given a bit of perspective on it, and a bit more moderation.

And so, crawling from the deepest muck-filled tubes of the internet, I return to the blogosphere. What kept me away so long, other than my proven track record of not posting with anything resembling regularity? A combination of things, really. Moving out of state, moving in with my fiancee’s family, massive lag issues keeping me out of WoW for months, but mostly, a lack of anything to say. Thankfully, for the two of you who will read this(I can be optimistic), now I have something to say.

Space: the final frontier. To boldly go where no other MMO has gone before, and make it just…so…blah.

We’ll start with the good. Space combat is fun, if a tad bit much spacebar spam, and some tactics do come into play, especially(but not only) during space combat pvp. It would be nice if there were multiple classes of the newb ship, or the grind to get to the second tier of ships was shorter, but hey, very minor thing.

I absolutely love the concept of having a built in 5-man group using bridge officers and security(red shirts) while soloing. The AI is decent, and you have the ability to control the NPCs to some extent.

Aaaaaaaand that’s pretty much it for the good. Sadly, and with heavy hearts longing for our one chance to bring the wonderfully vivid, imaginative world of Star Trek interactively into our living rooms, we move on to the bad.

Sector block travel, the way you get from system to system, is painfully slow. I understand there needs to be travel time, but it just feels sluggish and boring.

And, quite possibly the worst offender, the Briar Patch. This is a system filled with explosive gas that makes full impulse(fast movement, major penalty that takes time to diminish to attack, shields, and auxiliary power which affects turn rate, some special abilities), impossible. You have to take out ten turrets and some enemy ships, then storm a base. Gas clouds spawn all over that, if any weaponsfire happens near them, causes them to explode for ridiculous damage that bypasses shields to anything within 4km, which is kinda big(max weapon range is 10km). At times useful for taking out turrets and ships, more often than not you will find yourself blown up. And sent back to the entrance, because regardless of the map being somewhat large, and slow to traverse, unlike many(most?) other space missions, you have only the one respawn location. Just terrible mission design, completely lacking in polish. And the only way to really do the mission in any reasonable amount of time is to fly above the gas clouds, where half the turrets can’t target you, which just feels cheaty.

Murder, Death, Kill. So many of the missions involve busting a phaser cap in Klingons, or Klingon allies, it’s frigging ridiculous. Yes, we get it, the Federation and Klingon Empire are at war. But outside of a tiny number of scripted events, all space combats are to the death. No opponent, even non-Klingon enemies such as pirates, fight to the death with no survival instinct to flee, even if just to recharge shields. There is such little diplomacy in the game that it’s negative amounts. Every time you complete a mission, a war breaks out in a third world country. For realz.

Polish. It’s what’s helped to keep WoW the top MMO ever. This game? Very little. It feels slapped together, ground combat is awkward at best, mere days before launch and there are still what appear to be placeholder NPCs(from Champions Online) in dialogue options. The game is being rushed, it shows, and unless Cryptic has some major patching planned for very early, I think it will be the death of this game.

Instancing/Zoning. There is no contiguous feel to the game world. It’s so split up into system zones, and sector block zones, with instance caps of 50, and in some case 5 players, that it barely feels like an MMO.

Now, I may seem like I’m being harsh, but none of these issues are unfixable. Two more months of development, beta testing(with controlled numbers, and not open beta access being used as a marketing tool to sell preorders), communication between testers and devs, and this game would have a much better chance. It would be a pretty awesome game, one I would definitely play. Sadly, this is not going to happen. The bottom line is being put before producing a quality product, and it’s going to sink it.

I want this game to be good. I love Star Trek, and wish desperately that this game would live up to the awesome IP it’s based on. And there’s some just downright cool stuff. Being able to design your own, right down to the game mechanics influencing racial traits(think D&D 3/3.5 feats)? Brilliant. Leonard Nimoy voiceovering sector overviews? Incredible. But these are just small things, awesome by themselves, but not nearly enough to overcome the incredibly meh gameplay with it’s many issues.

I guess, then, there’s just one thing left to say. Help us, Bioware, you’re our only hope.

Okay, so here I am doing all the grind things you have to do – cooking, fishing, first aid, alchemy, herbs, etc. for MY char – at Tarren Mill. I was there because that is to be the next jumping-off point for our joint leveling (Ally, Bourg, myself).

Minding my own business, catching sagefish in the pond down the hill when the “Tarren Mill is under attack!” message appears. As you know, that appears for one location or another continually, and you just sort of ignore it unless you happen to be involved. It went on for a while, and I asked Bourg and Ally if I should try to help. Since it was just up the hill and all. They laughed (we are at Level 31 now with these characters.)…. said they would all be 80s.

BUT … the attack message went on for 15, 20, 25, 30 … finally,almost 45 minutes! So,I went up into town to see what was what, and the Alliance bunch was killing everyone and waiting for each to rez, and then, killing them again. They would just gang up in the center of town and wait for most to rez, then blast them all again. This went on two or three times, and I told Ally and Bourg.

They assembled all of you who could come help at that time, and I just sat back and watched. What a bloodbath. What a firestorm. I got to see incredible spells, sure, including finally understanding what use shaman totems (maxxed out) are, and what a draenei shadow priest does. A bunch of assorted alliance, including and most especially a killer shaman, shadow priest, death knight and rogue wiped out everybody several times, until reinforcements arrived.

It was a terrific battle, yes, and it was incredible to watch, but why would those people do this? It was shooting fish in a barrel. Bourg and Ally said they do this intentionally BECAUSE they know a bunch like DN will come to the rescue, and that it’s FUN. Just the battle itself. It that’s your goal, it seems a rather uncertain and disorganized modus operandi to me, but I guess it’s the unknown factor of the thing – if, when and who will come – that is the draw.

I especially liked the part where you all hightailed it to Southshore and retaliated, so that they went running back there when they rezzed! I cannot wait!

I watched you all raid last night and listened to all the gab while it was going on. It’s easy to see why everyone loves it = what camaraderie! What hilarity! What joie de vivre! Of course, you want to be there!

I was especially impressed with the Thaddeus/Feugen/Staggerlee (Stigmata, Sabbata – can’t recall his name) battle – that was epic. And I still can’t get over how you all chat while chopping – incredible. Oh, I don’t mean the calm, controlled constantly-changing stat quotes that Malfean and others insert, but the casual, off-hand comments; e.g., Iga’s “the chick who hit her is going to JAIL! – Ha, ha!!” while simultaneously rezzing and/or healing and buffing 79 people (it seems) 79 times while under attack in the midst of furious battle. Incredible.

And Iga, I was only laughing at your Frogger Annihilation because of the irony of it – I mean, you all had JUST discussed whether or not you were going to continue to make incessant fun of all who cratered at the Frogger crossing (quiet snickering from all) with comments about how maybe it ought to be changed to the Thaddeus Leap, and you immediately went and Frogged out. The humor of it just struck me, that’s all. Just WAIT until I get my warlock out there, with her Doom Guard, and I will make up for it.

Whatever foul creatures you go after tonight (or tomorrow?), I will be cheering all of you on in the bleachers, here!

Malfean has heralded my arrival here, saying, “a blogger with a unique perspective” would be joining you all. I suppose that is true, as most people in my age group do not play video games, RPGs or MMORPGs. Most of my peers think I am strange and weird because that is what I enjoy – the mental stimulation and just plain fun.

Hello to you all, and thanks to Malfean and Ally for letting me join a group like this. I am a 65-year old mother of six, grandmother of 11, great-grandmother of 4. Ally is the youngest of my six kids. I have worn many hats in my life – jack of all trades, master of none – and I have arrived at WOW with a background in console RPGs, the most involved, complex and difficult ones I could find. They, of course, are nothing compared to WoW, which is absolutely great stuff – light years beyond anything I have experienced before. Malfean and Ally are helping me power level, and they are VERY patient with the difficulties I am having in converting from controller to keyboard, and vision/perspective issues.

I watched you all do the Obsidian Sanctum raid, and it was terrific! I look forward to reaching level 80 in the distant future, and going with you to screw up everybody else doing all the wrong things … “more dots, many dots! … many whelps .. many whelps .. handle it!”

I am tickled to be here, and thanks!

BTW, Iga, thanks for your response, welcome and comment to my previous post yesterday (thus, this recap), which I somehow accidentally deleted! I have not been “speaking” much in the online Guild Chat while playing because I am concentrating so hard on doing the right thing with my character. Can’t multitask, or multitrack, so well or rapidly any more. BUT, it will improve as I get better! I promise to respond, at least a LITTLE, even if it’s only a “zug-zug”.

Blade Barrier: Changing from 10% parry to 5% damage reduction. This is a flat out 5% nerf to DK damage mitigation on physical bosses, and a 5% gain on magic damage. Except Frost Presence is being nerfed by 5%, so it’s no gain overall. This is a nerf to all DK tanks, as it is one of the core talents in all tanking specs. This also reduces DK threat per second, as fewer parries means fewer rune strikes.

Will of the Necropolis: A 15 second cooldown is being added to the damage reduction effect. This is one of the changes that just completely floored me. It seems very much like the age old situation of a PvP nerf FUBARing PvE.Blood spec nerf.

Vampiric Blood: Cooldown doubled to two minutes. The, as Blizzard calls us, “cooldown tanks” now have fewer cooldowns available during a fight. Blood spec nerf.

Lichborne: 25% miss chance being removed from the cooldown, making it a will of the forsaken for Death Knights. The “cooldown tanks” now have one fewer cooldown available. This is, for the most part, a nerf to all DK tanks, as Lichborne is taken in almost all DK tanking specs. Upside, 1 more talent point available to blood and frost specs, 3-6 more TPs available to unholy spec.

Unbreakable Armor: The lackluster ability(25% armor increase) this cooldown provides on live is being changed to damage reduction that scales with how much armor you have, and the amount of parry it grants is being nerfed from 10% to 5%. Cooldown is doubling to 2 minutes. So, the cooldown is being made useful for magic damage, but again, fewer cooldowns available during a fight. Frost spec nerf.

Howling Blast: The gutting of Howling Blast has been somewhat reversed, it’s gone from 5 second cooldown double damage on targets with frost fever to first 5 second cooldown, +50% damage against targets with frost fever, to 10 second cooldown base damage doubled scaling doubled. Not sure how this will effect the ability. Also moved from 31 point talent to 51 point talent.

So, Blood DKs are getting hit the worst(expected), with Frost and Unholy also getting significantly nerfed with the spec specific nerfs and the general DK tanking nerfs. Now, I understand there are some issues with tanking parity and shield-based tanks falling behind druids and Death Knights. The answer to this problem, however, is not to break Druid and DK tanks so that all of the tanks are subpar for bosses with big, slow hits. Specifically for Death Knights, the tanks with the most Damage Taken Per Second(DTPS) are going to be taking even more damage. I do not envy the struggle healers will be facing healing Death Knight tanks in 3.1.

Oh, and so I can avoid being told that all I’m doing is whining without any kind of suggestions for ways to fix the problem that don’t involve nerfing Druids and DKs to the ground, here we go: Change shields so instead of blocking a set amount, they block a set percentage of damage from a hit. Seems like it would buff a warrior or pally’s capability of dealing with big, slow hits without screwing those of us not using shields.

You might have noticed we’ve added Twitter to our site. Part of the reason for this is that we’re moving and I wanted to be able to keep in touch with our WoW guildies and also the blog as we’re in transit and before we get our internet set up. That should be an interesting task, since we’re going to be out in the country and there is basically ONE broadband option. A WISP, or wireless provider that caters to “last mile” wireless rural broadband. Looks to be good, just will take some time to set up. In the meantime, you can look for “Tweets” from us about our trip and on the status of our internet setup. Pray for us gamers, now and in the hour of our installation.

Secondly, I have a new and fun thing for you Windows Vista users! If you are using the Vista Sidebar with all of the fun gadget options like calendars, clocks, sticky notes and slideshows, there’s a new one just for WoW players! It’s called WoW Explorer. A neat little gadget with several nice background choices, that will display the realm status of your chosen realm(s) on your desktop all the time. (Handy for Tuesdays.) Also, it has a search feature that lets you search from among your favorite WoW related sites such as WoWDB, WoWHead, Thotbott, Allakhazam, WoWInsider, Curse Addons and even the Armory! Just today it’s been really handy for me when I was trying to figure out where to find a kind of fish I hadn’t gone after before. I recommend it!

And on a final note, when we do get our access back up and running, we should be introducing a new blogger to you. A blogger with a unique viewpoint. Stay tuned!

Lord, it’s been a while since I’ve posted here. I really am terrible at the whole blogging thing, apparently.

So, big things are afoot in the RaidedM household…mainly, it is changing locations. I was laid off in November, and we’re moving to BFE, Texas so Sharon can be closer to her family…down the hall closer. We hit the road March 10th, so things have been and will continue to be hectic. Also, we’ll be without ‘net access probably for about a week or so once we get down there. Is there a way to set up an intravenous WoW drip?

On the WoW front, Blood has surprising become a very viable tanking spec. I’ve been main tanking Naxx 10 using this spec, which I’ve been extremely happy with. Sadly it’s getting a slight nerf in 3.1 as of the PTR right now, losing the expertise on Blood Gorged and gaining armor pen. On the upside, it gives some more liberty to not go 51 points deep in Blood, and play around a bit more in the other trees. Once 3.1 lands, I’m considering going with a Blood/Unholy tanking build that uses Death Strike for it’s U/F pair, skipping Annihilation for more toys in Unholy.

Also, in news from the PTR, Frost is taking it in the ass. Not only is Howling Blast getting moved to the 51 point talent, it’s taking a 25% damage cut, nerfing aoe threat generation for frost tanks in a big way, which will push more people into Blood or Unholy for tanking, and push the majority of DK DPSers to Unholy, pretty much killing Frost’s viability. The good news? Unholy is being buffed, so we can expect a nerf to Unholy and a buff to Frost shortly after the patch, if things remain as they are on the PTR.

And why is all of this taking place? Because Blizzard can’t seem to figure out how to make dual wielding a non-viable raid dps spec. Now, granted, the HB/Impurity/Crypt Fever build has been pretty broken for some time. Tossing on some rep blues/mostly greens in 3.0.3 and rocking 1800-2k DPS in heroics was a tad broken. However, there has to be a way to kill the DW specs without gutting Frost tanking in aoe situations. If they’re that determined to nullify dual wield in raiding situations, just remove the ability from DKs and compensate one handed weapons in inventory somehow.

Why do I say Blizzard is trying to remove dual wield viability entirely, rather than just balance it? Let’s look at the facts. Back in beta, Blizzard openly stated that they wanted 2h DPS to be superior to DW DPS. Also, let’s look at the tree. With Howling Blast moved to the 51 point talent, it is no longer possible to obtain it and Impurity, which was the main talent boosting the damage on it so high for DW DKs. You’re also no longer able to pick up desecration, another cut to the HB damage. I believe these changes would have brought DW spec in line with 2H DPS. However, to remove those talents interacting with Howling Blast -and- cut the damage on it by 25%, you’re gutting the ability, yet again making a substandard ability for the 51 point ability in Frost.

As a disclaimer, all of this ranting is regarding PTR patch notes/changes, which are subject to change at any time.